~ how do we reconcile the beauty with the horror?

Dreaming of Andalusia

I was filling out my advance directive this week and I had a couple of the guys in the office sign it as witnesses.

One guy says, “You want them to pull the plug if you’re fucked up?”

“Yeah. That’s the general idea.”

“So….like, a splinter or something, I make sure they take you out?”

“Exactly.”

*

The other guy says, “Okay, so I make sure they pull the plug on you?”

“Yep.”

He thinks about it for a second, a frown on his face. Then he lights up, big smile,

“But then I get to avenge your death, right?”

*

You gotta love these guys.

*

I’m in one of those kind of becalmed states. Things are steady and easy everywhere I look. My kid is clean and sober and happy, as happy as I’ve ever seen her since she was about seven or eight. My beautiful wife loves me and we get to spend most evenings on the sofa, drinking our tea and watching NYPD Blue or Deadwood or some other good old show on Netflix. I rub her feet while she knits, it’s quiet and calm and restful, the dark night all outside around us but we’re snug as two little bugs under one of the quilts she made, contented, nothing bad happening anywhere except on the TV. My family is good, no one is dying or in the hospital or even sick right now. We’re just pullin’ easy on the oars in the deep water, no rocks in sight, no storms on the horizon, plenty of food laid in.

I’ll be fifty this year, it seems like a gift this world’s given me. This life, this much goodness in it.

This state you describe, I think you called it in, and are wise enough to recognize it and rest in it and let it flow outward from you to help becalm our world. It’s beautiful to contemplate, to know this peace is there for us. I’m happy for you, your happy girl, your beautiful Yolie. Namaste.

Well, like all states it is transitory and will not endure, but it is only more beautiful because of that. What I want is to make sure to notice and give thanks for these moments, rather than miss out on them because I am thinking about what went wrong in the past or what is likely to go wrong in the future.

Happiness requires hard work, wisdom, and awareness- it must be cultivated and allowed to express its innate nature. We have to be certain we are not imposing our own concepts upon it or we will end up with something not quite whole, a pale and lifeless approximation of the true richness of of the genuine article.

how i celebrate for you that you are mindful enough to know that you are in a sweet spot. they are precious. of course, buddhist practice desires for us to find that in all circumstances. i’m not quite there yet, but i am mindful enough to know it – and the periods of losing center are growing shorter.

Thanks, Mary Jane. I think gratitude is so critical for a sense of happiness and an understanding of how abundant our blessings really are- it’s too easy to focus on what’s wrong and totally miss the amazing gifts being showered on us daily.

And practice is just an astoundingly powerful tool to bring awareness to the forefront, it really has changed how I experience everything. I’m so happy to know that you are on the path and working it.